Occassionally when I watch a DVD the picture may start to break up. Currently I am watching Babylon 5 First Season. I was watching "Born to the Purple" when Londo Mollari started to break up into pixels.

What's up with that? Is it the DVD? Is it the DVD player? Is this normal?

Are you watching the DVD on your computer or on a stand-alone DVD player?

If you're watching the DVD on the PC, it's possible that the computer is simply trying to do too many things at once; it pixelates the image because it doesn't have the time to compose the high-resolution image AND keep up with the movie.

My suggestion: if you can, increase the priority of the DVD player. (On some Windows machines, you can do that through the CTRL-ALT-DEL window, "task process" or some-such.)

Otherwise, close as many OTHER programs as you can. Don't have anything else running. (Again, many Windows machines naturally slow down the longer they've been running, thanks to a damnable RAM leak; restarting THEN closing the unnecessary programs might help even more).

If the breakup is only for a second or two it probably is just your player. For some reason my main player (a samsung) has always done it, I think it is just a player glitch and it is tolerable. It could just be a speck of dust in the player or something I don't know.

Now that I think about it, if it's the actually player, it might not be getting enough ventilation. Computers (and a DVD player is essentially a computer dedicated to one job, decoding DVDs) are a big mass of wires with current running through them. As current (a stream of electrons) runs through the wires, the wires heat up. Thus, resistance increases. Thus, it's harder to push electorns through the wires. Thus, the computer slows down. Ventilation helps keep the machine cool, which helps it run optimally.

fnordboy wrote:If the breakup is only for a second or two it probably is just your player. For some reason my main player (a samsung) has always done it, I think it is just a player glitch and it is tolerable. It could just be a speck of dust in the player or something I don't know.

I have a stand alone player. I tried the same disc later on and did not have the same problem. So maybe it was a dust problem.